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The Penny Arcade Thread

Discussion in 'Entertaining Diversions' started by Marcus, Jan 6, 2012.

  1. Bahimiron Already Beat BF's New Expansion

    Hah.

    I'm not about to forgive the shitty art, but it definitely explains the weird expressions on Jim's face in the second strip. I almost think that it's kind of clever!
  2. Jamie Madigan Armchair Designer

    Heh, I do kind of like the punchline in the last panel, though.
    AaronSofaer likes this.
  3. Pogo Hard Cider Gal

    I don't mind Jim's head in that one because Jim seems like he's a pretty special dude.
  4. Ben Sones Elitist Negative Nancy

    Location:
    Lordran
    Actually, I think most of the art in that series was pretty good. The only stuff that was a bit off was her neck, and Jim's head in that one panel.

    And your right about the expression thing. Looking at it again, his expressions match hers. It makes sense once you know that she is his puppet.
  5. Jamie Madigan Armchair Designer

    [IMG]

    Well I'll be...
    RyanMM and AaronSofaer like this.
  6. Rasputin Jim Armchair Designer

    Well, that was stupid. Thanks for reminding me why I stopped reading PA and PvP, guys!

    The facial expression thing was pretty clever, though.
    RyanMM and Adam B like this.
  7. Bahimiron Already Beat BF's New Expansion

    It's always 100% great when PA decides to tackle gender issues, right?

    [IMG]
  8. Jamie Madigan Armchair Designer

    "There's no gate and you're not the gatekeeper" is pretty spot on, though.
  9. JoshV Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    They actually did well on a gender issue, kind of surprising.
    Anti-Bunny and RyanMM like this.
  10. Bahimiron Already Beat BF's New Expansion

    I don't think one of us is getting their joke, then.

    It may be me. It's possible that after watching them flub every possible situation like this in the past I just assumed the worst. But when the girlfriend turns out to clearly be fake and in fact be a literal straw(wo)man, it seems to me that they're taking a shot at the people on the side of the recent 'this girl isn't a real geek' kerfuffle who were saying that it's ridiculous to judge someone as not being a 'real geek' just because they're an attractive girl.

    Considering how over the top Tycho is being and the ultimate reveal on Cheeto's girlfriend, I figured that the ultimate message was that Tycho is wrong and he represents how wrong it is to 'white knight' geek girls. Or whatever.
    Jason Pace, quatoria and roBurky like this.
  11. JoshV Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Heh, okay, I can see that now that you point it out. But I thought the speech in the middle panel was pretty good, and chalked up the last panel to needing to get a laugh out of the comic somewhere.
    AaronSofaer likes this.
  12. Jamie Madigan Armchair Designer

    I honestly did not even think it through that much to get the second strawman joke. I have to wonder if they meant it that way or not.
    roBurky likes this.
  13. quatoria Magister Mundi Elyscape

    That is exactly the message I took from it.
    Angie Gallant and Bahimiron like this.
  14. Quitch Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    UK
    You see the length of your post? That's why its interpretation of a PA comic cannot be right.
    Afti, Anti-Bunny, Lhowon and 4 others like this.
  15. JoshV Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    It'll be interesting to see the daily screed that goes with the comic, it will probably reveal more.
  16. Hanacker Armchair Designer

    Yeah, after a fairly serious middle panel (drink some bad poison and shit out your life could be kind of funny, and is a typical PA "joke"), I thought they just decided to go goofy for the last one.
    RyanMM likes this.
  17. Dean Despondent Fancybear

    Location:
    Cthulhu territory
    Recent PA on gender issues:

    [IMG]

    No, they are not good at dealing with gender issues.
    RyanMM likes this.
  18. Jamie Madigan Armchair Designer

    I actually snickered at that one because I had just seen the video that they were directly parodying there. It was a "How not to get labeled a convention creeper" guide that had stupendously obvious advice that no normal person should need (e.g., "Don't follow a cosplayer around and say 'I'm so glad we met. Fate has brought us together. I feel like we should be together forever!'" or somesuch) . The video was unintentionally hilarious because of it. "Don't stick your finger up their butthole" is not THAT far off from what the video was laying out as very serious and much needed advice.

    Heck, see for yourself:

  19. quatoria Magister Mundi Elyscape

    Here you go. This is it. This is the entire amount that has anything to do with the comic. The rest is yelling about Devil May Cry.

    "Sometimes, typically to provide rhetorical fuel, our opinions are conflated with some larger “gamer culture” bugaboo. The reality is that we have no idea what is going on in “gamer culture,” it’s getting progressively less coherent, I can’t make sense of it at all and I have officially stopped trying."

    That's it.
  20. JoshV Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Yeah...I guess at least he doesn't stick his foot in his mouth?
    RyanMM likes this.
  21. Dean Despondent Fancybear

    Location:
    Cthulhu territory
    Okay, that makes more sense now. Actually though, I think that video isn't exactly silly. It seems to be made by a bunch of cosplay girls (as evidenced by the lack of a male nerd playing the male nerd), so it's probably something they felt needed to be explained to idiot nerds who go to cons.

    I mean, I still have to make the "shower every day" speech to my nerds every spring.
    AaronSofaer, RyanMM and Bahimiron like this.
  22. Meserach Despondent Fancybear

    Location:
    Blighty
    Sadly, that video's "obvious" advice is often very necessary.
    RyanMM and Bahimiron like this.
  23. Quitch Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    UK
    It's like I'm watching some kind of nature documentary.
    Mark M likes this.
  24. Jamie Madigan Armchair Designer

    A lot of talent and effort obviously went into that video and It's very well done, technically. But for me that just makes it all the funnier given the juxtaposition of that polish and the characters behaving like they'd be more appropriate in a SNL skit. And maybe I'm wrong, but I have a hard time believing that guys going up to women at a con and saying that stupid, corny stuff --at least so much so that it's a problem that needs a public service announcement. Oggling, copping a feel during a photo op, sure. But not the kind of cornball stuff in that video. The most cynical part of me thinks that the video was at best done just to be funny, and at worst as as an effort to get something promotional to go viral.

    But then again, what do I know? Probably less than the women who made the video. Maybe guys say that stuff not in a serious way, but in a flat out harassing way (which I totally would believe). But that didn't seem to be the tone of the video.
  25. Lum Fatbird

    Actually, the video was polite given the behavior of male con-goers. The women probably didn't want to have to into the sort of lurid detail such "OK, first off shower, second off, no we don't want to have sex with you. And that's pretty much third fourth and fifth. Sixth, wash your damn hands. Seventh 8th and 9th is still the no sex thing."
    Anti-Bunny, ehm ecks, RyanMM and 2 others like this.
  26. Bahimiron Already Beat BF's New Expansion

    It's like the stuff that was covered recently in Angie Gallant's skeptic feminism thread. Apparently a lot of geek guys seem to believe that if females show up to what they assume is meant to be a male-only event, it's because they're making themselves sexually available. Not too surprisingly these same guys figure that if the girl shows any skin it has to be because they're looking for that special guy to fuck them.
    Angie Gallant and quatoria like this.
  27. Jamie Madigan Armchair Designer

    That's pretty depressing to hear. I have two daughters, and one of them is cultivating (admittedly with some help from dad) what could probably fairly be called geeky interests --video games, fantasy novels, science, comics, Legos, Pokemon, etc. I'd rather she (or anyone, for that matter) have to run anywhere near that crowd. Maybe I can pressure her into joining a gang, instead.
    RyanMM and BobJustBob like this.
  28. Quitch Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    UK
    A sexy, leather wearing gang?
    RyanMM likes this.
  29. Lum Fatbird

    I wouldn't send an under-21 girl to a con alone, no.
  30. Adam B Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Location:
    Minneapolis
    On the positive side of things, it's entirely possible to lead a fulfilling life without going to nerd cons.
    SqueakyFoo likes this.
  31. Jamie Madigan Armchair Designer

    I meant when she was older.
  32. Hanacker Armchair Designer

    Over 21 is a little late to join a gang.
  33. Lum Fatbird

    I AM TOTALLY JUDGING YOUR PARENTING SKILLS
    CSPariah and Hanacker like this.
  34. Angie Gallant Bollocks Mahoney

    Location:
    Austin, TX
    The culture being what it is currently, I recommend all the ones over 21 go in packs too. That's generally the advice anyone gives a woman of any age going to a con.

    I've made friends with a couple of cosplayers. People approaching them blur fiction with reality in insanely creepy ways way more often than you'd hope.
    ehm ecks, quatoria and RyanMM like this.
  35. quatoria Magister Mundi Elyscape

    Even if you're not cosplaying. simply being a woman at a con seems to be all the justification socially maladjusted fuckwits need to put their hands on you, grab you, throw you around, or worse, as if your presence was guaranteed consent. It's really fucking skeevy. For those who can't imagine what it's like, read this testimony - http://borderhouseblog.com/?p=9934

    Read it and see if you can avoid either shaking with rage or crying by the time you're done. I couldn't.
    Anti-Bunny, ehm ecks, sinnick and 2 others like this.
  36. Bahimiron Already Beat BF's New Expansion

    Linked from quatoria's article is this bit of fucking insanity, featuring a dipshit who likes to harass females playing games on TwitchTV because they're 'attention whores', as if being a female who dares to allow people to see you makes you an attention whore.

    It's pretty disheartening. How the fuck does this get fixed? I keep hoping that maybe our political climate will change when all these ancient-ass white in charge of the world just die already, but these young shitbirds are the ones replacing the old shitbirds and fuck will nothing ever stop being awful?
    sinnick, JoshV and RyanMM like this.
  37. Rasputin Jim Armchair Designer

    Today's is not funny, but true. I've seen the kind of sentiment in the first panel ON THESE VERY BOARDS!!1!
    [IMG]
    nixon66, roBurky and AaronSofaer like this.
  38. JoshV Keeper of the Elemental Materials

    Eh, the big difference for me has always been that watching football is passive, I don't enjoy watching videogames either. I used to play the heck outta Tecmo Bowl and the early Maddens though.


    (I also hate the culture of football, the wasted money by colleges, the drug use, long term damage from head injuries, the rape cover ups, etc, but that's all for a more political thread)
    AaronSofaer and Hanzii like this.
  39. Hanzii Magister Mundi Elyscape

    Exactly. I am just as unlikely to watch master Starcraft players compete. I like playing games, not watching others play no matter how good the players are.
    That said, sport does nothing for me, but I don't care what others do. It just means that there's conversations where I tune out or leave and on this forum, I just put a whole subforum on permanently ignore.
  40. AaronSofaer Magister Mundi Elyscape

    You are empirically wrong, sir. Today's strip is funny.